


October Service Logs

by buckles



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 01:11:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5314373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckles/pseuds/buckles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cait decides to keep a diary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	October Service Logs

Today is the last day I quit taking fucking Psycho.

I wake up in the morning and I feel like death from the inside out, right? You feel like moving around is going to kill you. The pain when you take your foot out of bed ...you think a super mutant's stepping on it. So you need a hit just to be able to get out of the fucking bed. Christ. I've had enough of it. 

I want to tell her. She's been good to me so far. So good I wonder whether she's going to stab me in the back. I mean, it's not like this hasn't been the recurring pattern of my own miserable fucking life. So it feels like it's already happened, and I'm the last one to be told the news, as always. 

Because I don't want to be screaming with pain and draw attention to myself, I get out the gear and hope to God that no one's lookin'. And a few seconds later, I feel just barely human again. Me. Cait.

Still don't know why I'm still here with her. Most people I've travelled with who seem to think that I'm an okay kind of sort I've told about my lousy fecking upbringing and they've smiled; nodded. 

Then changed the subject. But her... I mean, I could see she wanted to give me a fucking hug. I don't need pity. Don't mean I would have liked a hug, though. But no one's ever even looked at me like I wasn't some low life junkie shite-for-brains bit of ...shite before. 

And it's confusing the hell out of me. I mean, how do I explain this? See... _she_ came along and wasn't a total arse to me. And the thing you learn early in this shitehole world is that no one is ever kind out of the goodness of their own feckin hearts. You can't expect God to come riding down in a chariot to save your sorry ass. Only thing you can rely on, truly rely on, is your own goddamn self and your own goddamn rifle. 

Everyone wants to survive, and they'll do that survivin' off your own back. So when I look at her, I'm wonderin' what the hell does she want from me? I'm _nothin'_. Just some... cage fighter she seemed to take a liking to. Got no caps to my name. No wealth. No fame. So what is it? 

So it's confusin' the hell out of me. And when sobriety digs it's clammy bastard fingers around my skull, or we're not shooting up deadbeats, I'm looking at her and wondering what it is she sees in me. 

Tch. It's nice to think about something else for a change.

* 

Today is the last day I quit taking fucking Psycho.

Thought I would see how long I could last before my first hit of the day. She was out there, watching over Red Rocket like she does. Watching over _me_ , like I'm the most valuable treasure in the Commonwealth to her.

Shite. Anyway, the first step's a real arse, like I said yesterday. But I struggle along, you know, wincing and my heart pounding like I'm about to have a fucking heart attack, and she turns, smiling at me.

Christ, she looks like an angel sometimes. And because I feel like shite I'm almost feeling unworthy to look in her direction.

"Hey." she says to me.

The pain's nearly unbearable. Can't help myself. "Sure, sure. Keep your shirt on." I snap.

Jesus _, Cait_ , I think to myself.

Then she checks out my equipment, but I barely notice because I feel like there's a bomb inside me and it's about to go off. And just before we head out, I sneak a shot of Psycho, because Christ, I can't keep up a whole day of her carrying feckin' twelve coffee cups across the Commonwealth for God-knows-what she does with that shite.

I mean, if it seems like I'm upset with her, I'm not. The gear messes with you. Fucks you up. When you're riding like one of God's chosen through waves of Gunners or ferals with the Psycho in your veins you feel invincible. Unstoppable. Dare I say it: righteous. So you get a little snippy sometimes. 

We end up outside the ruins of the old C.I.T. It ends up being rather boring, after she give a few muties a generous donation of laser beams to their faces and I knock over a couple of synths. I can tell she's lookin' for a little more blood to spill, because I know that face, and I'm looking to spill a little more too. And soon we're on the steps of this old hospital.

I mean, it's got no Sierra Madre retirement payout, but we have a good scrap dismembering Raiders. Too easy, right? And then she goes and picks up this furry thing from the ground floor. Two of them.

"What the hell are those things?" I ask her.

"These? Teddy bears?" she says.

"Yeah. You pick up all this old stuff, but I've never seen you pick anything soft and fuzzy like this. What's it for?" 

"You'd give them to children, and ...well, the kids would keep them around their beds, for... I don't know, comfort?"

She didn't seem much too sure of it either. Never had no "teddy bears" when I was growing up. She knows the story of my arsehole parents and my youth well enough.

Later, after she blasts the hospital's resident deathclaw to little pieces, she taps me on the shoulder and gives me a bunch of junk to carry back to Red Rocket. And part of the load of crap she dumps on me is one of the two teddy bears she picks up.

I'm standing there while she's fiddling about with her bags and pockets looking at this furry bastard and trying not to remember shite again. Somehow, I give the fucker a squeeze and it goes away. 

Just a little bit.

But my skin crawls and itches again. Blood strums through my temples and I know the feeling. I know the feeling and I want it to go away more than anything. I try and settle my nerves and try and think it away, but I pull out a shot of Psycho and it quivers in my useless hands. 

Fuck. 

*

Today is the last day I quit taking fucking Psycho.

Last night I had a dream. That I was back at the Combat Zone, punching some Raider in the face repeatedly, blood streaming down his nose, the Psycho pushing me on, feeling the bone break beneath my knuckles, vision blurring slightly. But I remember during it was that I wasn't scared or frightened or nothin'. 

I was fuckin' _disappointed_.

All this time, I fuckin' hated being at the Combat Zone. Sure, I made a few caps here and there, but there was nowhere to go. No way out. No one else.

Then I wake up 'cause I feel something on my shoulder and it freaks me the fuck out, and there she is, lookin' worried at me. 

'Course, I hadn't had any fuckin' Psycho yet and it's some ungodly hour and I shout and yell at her because of the pain.

"Christ! What the fuck?"

"Easy. It's okay. You were thrashing about. I was worried."

I take a few breaths to try and compose myself. To try and get above the pain, just for a little while. But it isn't working, and I end up coughing like I've just swallowed a bloatfly. 

And of course, through all this shite, she's sitting next to me and holding me even with half my blood coughed up over her knee.

I can't take another hit while she's here. 

Even though I know it's the only thing that's going to stop me from wanting to throw up from all the coughing. Eventually, she figures out that a bit of addictol might help and goes off to get it. 

I find my stash and quickly jab it in. 

So I have to fuckin' go through the motions and pretend it's doing some good. I feel awful doing this to her. Lying to her, even more. But I'm too goddamn embarrassed to shoot up the gear in front of her. 

She goes back to her watch position, to try and let me sleep a little more before morning. But I can't. I lie there, starin' at the wall. I had the shotgun in my hands, looking down the barrel. _I never wanted to win_ , I say to myself. I travel with her, shooting up monsters and waster scum, and I never wanted to win.

*

Today is the last day I quit taking fucking Psycho.

It's got to be the last fucking day I quit taking fucking Psycho. I'm not a good person. And I'm not a bad person, either. And neither is she. But the way she looks at me... I still don't get it. She's seen everything, all the ugly shite I usually keep to myself she knows. And she's still here, being sweet on me. 

One day, back at the Combat Zone, I'm at the bar on my third bottle of whiskey, out of my goddamn skull. But I hear these two Raider blokes talking about this Vault full of junkies.

Vault 95. 

Now, trusting the word of a bunch of _Raiders_ is a pretty fuckin' stupid thing to do, but when you're off your face, anythin' sounds like a plan. But now... now I'm at the end of my rope, and if I don't try something, then there's no hope for me yet. 

So I tell _her_ the story.

And off we fucking go! Right then and there. So I'm thinking, maybe it is the last day I quit taking Psycho?

We carve our way through murderbots and gunners and clear out the fucking place. We're donating a single bullet for each of these fuckers, so I feel like this is meant to be. Heaven sent, if there is such a fuckin' place. But then we get to the chair, and suddenly I don't know if I want to go through with it. I don't want to remember. To remember the past. To remember the shite. The Psycho's been the only thing helpin' me cope with the pain so far in my life.

But then I remember that she's here. She brought me here. She's stuck by me and hasn't let me down. 

"We'll face that pain together", she tells me.

 _Christ_. So. I sit in the fuckin' chair.

And it's the last fuckin' day I take Psycho.


End file.
